Monday, August 5, 2013

For a few years in the 1990s, I was roving correspondent, sometime co-anchor, and book reviewer for Gay Fairfax, a weekly television magazine series telecast over Channel 10 in Fairfax County, Virginia, and bicycled to other cable-access TV channels in the Washington, D.C., area and elsewhere around the United States.

About ten years ago, Vito Russo wrote a book called The Celluloid Closet, which examined the portrayals of gay men and lesbians in mainstream films from America and elsewhere.

Russo really did not look behind the scenes, however. This is what Dyer does.

Dyer looks at films made by and for gay men and lesbians, that is, gay filmmakers making films for specifically gay audiences.

This is something that wasn't really easy for Russo to look at when he wrote his book ten years ago but with archival material becoming available, Dyer has been able to unearth a number of films that are very significant in historical perspective.

Dyer starts by looking at the films of Weimar Germany right after the First World War.

One very famous film of that period was called Different from the Others ("Anders als die Andern"), which starred Conrad Veidt, a matinee idol who became famous in our country as the wicked Nazi major in Casablanca.

Veidt portrayed a gay man who is being blackmailed and that film was not only very popular in Weimar Germany, it eventually became banned.

At the end of the Weimar period was a film made for lesbians which also has become quite famous, Mȁdchen in Uniform.

Between these two films of 1920 and 1933, Weimar Germany produced the bulk of films for gay audiences. They set the trend for the rest of the world – England, France, Sweden, America – and set standards for film making from then on.

The lesbian and gay films that Dyer examines include Genet's classics Un chant d'amour and Possession, which revolutionized gay cinema with their exciting, vibrant imagery and dramatic style.

Dyer's book is an important contribution to film studies and gay literature. I recommended very highly.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

For a few years in the 1990s, I was roving correspondent, sometime co-anchor, and book reviewer for Gay Fairfax, a weekly television magazine series telecast over Channel 10 in Fairfax County, Virginia, and bicycled to other cable-access TV channels in the Washington, D.C., area and elsewhere around the United States.

Today will be looking at a book about culture, Over the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America by Professor Paul Nathanson.

There are many famous movies. There are many movies that are considered great by critics and by film scholars. There are many movies that are popular but there are few movies that have inserted themselves into the collective consciousness of America.

Who's not familiar with the characters like Dorothy Gale of Kansas, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, Glinda the Good Witch of the North, the Wicked Witch of the West, and, of course, the Wizard himself.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

There: Didn't you recognize that line automatically?

Nathanson is a Canadian scholar who's written a multi-disciplinary analysis of The Wizard of Oz -- the movie, the book, the music, the lyrics, the actors, and the way the movie has inserted itself into American culture.

Americans have been fascinated by The Wizard of Oz for more than fifty years and this is a fascinating book in its own way but it has one serious shortcoming.

For the gay community, especially for gay men, The Wizard of Oz is a defining myth that helps us come to terms with our identity. It's a coming-of-age myth in its own way.

For many years the question, “Are you a friend of Dorothy?” was a coded way of asking if someone was gay

“Over the Rainbow” has become a gay anthem of love and desire and Judy Garland is a gay icon.

So the Wizard is important for for much of gay America, yet Professor Nathanson in this book only mentions the gay community – gay subculture – once, in a single footnote on page 354.

Can he be serious?

Even with this unfortunate missing link, Over the Rainbow it is a fascinating book and anyone who has loved Dorothy Gale or liked the music of The Wizard of Oz should take a look at it

Over the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth in America from State University of New York Press -- it's just been published. It's by Professor Paul Nathanson.